Dawntrail Healers need a rework

[ASkellington]

Agreed. And people get mad at me for pitching this idea, but it's the best one.

People get mad at you for it because they don't like your version of it.

Specifically this:

An improvement would be for one healer to keep the damage kit it has now

No, its not an improvement. An improvement would be:

Make it so all healers have different healing styles and dps styles, giving each healer an identity and level of play for people to choose from for all avenues of play.

Current healers give NOTHING for veteran healers. And I've already told you it isn't fair to tell other people to go play another class because YOU think that retaining the current set up is the only way to get what YOU want despite the fact we've argued plenty of times that a simple healer can exist with more dps options. And so long as the latter can exist, you have no platform to stand on.

I've pushed for more diversed healers. What I haven't done, is limit their kit and limit which class can get improvements.

[Renathras]

People get mad at you for it because they don't like your version of it.

Well, they don't like the idea of a healer that doesn't have a statospheric skill ceiling based on doing damage and don't think a skill ceiling based on doing actual healing can exist since it would cause novice healers to be unable to clear content. The thing is, in encounters where the difficulty is high, the two are the same (not doing enough damage = failing enrage so both are the same thing), and in content where that doesn't matter, said players aren't going to be engaged no matter what we do, so it's a moot point. It's people kind of wanting to have their cake and eat it, too...

...except the problem is my suggestion allows for that. It just doesn't FORCE it on everyone, and they want it forced oneveryone.

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It is an improvement.

There is no class or role in any MMO that accommodates everyone. None. Find one class in any MMO ever that you think everyone loved and everyone could tailor exactly how they wanted to play it, and I'll point you to a thing that does not exist. No other role is held to this standard, either. No one insists every Tank should be identical so they will enjoy it. No one demands that of Casters or Ranged or Melee. It's only Healers where some players think that every one of the aesthetics of all four Jobs must play they way they wish so that they can have their exact preferred playstyle on whichever one they choose.

Besides which, that's literally what I suggst: "all healers have different healing styles and dps styles, giving each healer an identity" is straight up contained in "leave one and change three". The rest is vague and you're going to have to define "for peopel to choose" and "all avenues of play". Does "avenues" included off-tanking, for example? No...so what? "having a DPS rotation"? Be more specific.

Current healers give plenty for veteran healers. I've been healing in MMOs since they were called MUDs.

And you say you've told me it's not fair to tell people to play another class...
...but you're telling me I can't play the ROLE anymore since you're turning it into "DPS". How is that fair?

It's not about what _I_ want, since my suggestion allows for playstyles that I DON'T want but think would be healthy for the game.

It's that you think the change you're asking for is the way to get what YOU want and you don't give a damn what people like me want or that we'd have NOTHING if you got you rway.

I don't want "more DPS options", and I'm not alone. So what do you say to all the people that don't want more DPS options? "You can still play, you'll just be bad because you're playing the not-red Job and not doing enough damage"? How is that "fair", exactly?

I've consistently pushed for more diversified healers, and it's a strawman to say I say they must hav ea "limit" in "improvements". I just don't see WHAT YOU WANT as "improvement". That's why I don't think all healers should have it. Imagine if someone though SMN was an improvement and insisted RDM and BLM should share in that "improvement"? Would you tell the BLM asking to be left alone that he's selfish for not wanting to have his rotation turned into SMN's? Or that he's insisting on limiting the Caster kits and limit which Caster Job can "get improvements"?

Of course you wouldn't.

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Ty goes too far, but at least he (sorta...) gets the right idea.

We have to share this role, so no one gets everything. But that's true of literally all the other roles, so demanding Healer be an exception makes no sense.

Indeed, all the other roles have a low skill ceiling Job as it is, in case we're making THAT argument: WAR, SMN, and arguably DNC and RPR. Healers shouldn't be some magic exception to this rule.

[ty_taurus]

Well, they don't like the idea of a healer that doesn't have a statospheric skill ceiling based on doing damage

Is that hyperbole though?

[Renathras]

Is that hyperbole though?

Is it?

All of you have said you don't mind a healer or two being easy to learn, but you want them all to be very difficult to master with a lot of optimization and a large gap between skill floor and skill ceiling - hence "stratospheric". I mean, realistically, the term is pretty variable (stratosphere isn't very far if you're talking about an interstellar vessel, for example), and "height" in this sense is subjective and ill defined - if I said "ten story building", would that be hyperbole or wouldn't it, since there's no agreed upon metric for what a given "story" of "height" to the ceiling actually is.

Regardless, the point also very much stands: That people opposed to the idea want a high skill ceiling*, feel it CAN'T be in the healing kit (due to wipes but somehow and wrongly excluding Enrage wipes from that metric), and so it must be through damage complexity.

Is that not so?

EDIT:

*and want it for ALL Healer Jobs, without exception, despite other roles (WAR for Tanks and SMN for DPS) having an option that has a low skill ceiling. And also that these people think that ALL healers should conform to their desire, so no matter which aesthetic they like, they can personally enjoy the Job (or all of them), despite no other role in this or any other MMO having that requirement imposed on it.

EDIT2:

Also, in retrospect - since you were going for the gotcha/hypocrite line - I shouldn't have even said what Snow was doing was hyperbole. Hyperbole is exaggerating something but still within the realm of truth. What Snow said is actually a verifiable lie. That is, it is something that can be measured, objectively, and found to be untrue; there were absolutely people in 5.0 praising the healer changes, either for WHM specifically or for the healers collectively. The former of those (praising WHM's change) were probably a majority, the latter a minority, but in either case, it was not "precisely zero" - a numeric objective thing that can be measured and is false, therefore, a lie.

[ASkellington]

Current healers give plenty for veteran healers. I've been healing in MMOs since they were called MUDs.

That is a lie.

...but you're telling me I can't play the ROLE anymore since you're turning it into "DPS". How is that fair?

At what point am I asking for the Healer role to turn into a DPS? That's YOUR biased view point. I'm asking for something to do that isn't a boring Glare/Malefic/Dosis/Broil spam on all healers when I have nothing to do that also works in Solo play so I can play healer through the MSQ. Buffs don't work. Period. See AST for an example.

I don't want "more DPS options", and I'm not alone. So what do you say to all the people that don't want more DPS options?

Then give an alternative that works for SOLO and group play so that I have something to do when I have nothing to heal. Your 4 healer model doesn't do that. And you've yet to give a satisfactory answer.

I just don't see WHAT YOU WANT as "improvement".

Mine is certainly a better improvement than yours. Your "improvement" is objectively bad because healers currently are objectively bad. They are quite literally not designed for the current state of combat design and need to change. All of them.

Indeed, all the other roles have a low skill ceiling Job as it is, in case we're making THAT argument: WAR, SMN, and arguably DNC and RPR. Healers shouldn't be some magic exception to this rule.

Except all of those while having a low skill ceiling job also has more than 2 dps buttons as their main attack, show casing that you can have more than two measely dps buttons and still be simple while ALSO (in DNC and RPR's case) have a higher skill ceiling for people who want it. Healers shouldn't be some magic exception to this rule.

Further last I checked you had this to say

Well, it's not the topic at hand, but this IS kind of a point I've made before. And why I've specifically advocated for Aero3/Banish since otherwise WHM is pretty much undisputedly better now than it was in SB.

something that I also advocated a while back and you gave me grief over and for months afterwards kept saying "keep WHM the same".

You don't want DPS buttons and that's fine, but don't go and sit there saying that you're "going to be forced off the role if they add 2-3 more dps buttons after getting rid of parts of the bloated healing kit we don't need".

Last I checked that's an hyperbole.

Well, they don't like the idea of a healer that doesn't have a statospheric skill ceiling

And so was this. Also thanks for putting words in my mouth again. I've repeatedly told you I don't want WHM to have a ceiling akin to SB levels of SCH/AST yet you keep lumping me with them.

You don't want genuine discussion I swear.

[ty_taurus]

Is it?

All of you have said you don't mind a healer or two being easy to learn, but you want them all to be very difficult to master with a lot of optimization and a large gap between skill floor and skill ceiling - hence "stratospheric". I mean, realistically, the term is pretty variable (stratosphere isn't very far if you're talking about an interstellar vessel, for example), and "height" in this sense is subjective and ill defined - if I said "ten story building", would that be hyperbole or wouldn't it, since there's no agreed upon metric for what a given "story" of "height" to the ceiling actually is.

You're exaggerating all the points I've ever made. Why did you specify that they are all "very" difficult to master, with a "lot" of optimization and a "large" gap between the skill floor and ceiling? I've stated many many times in the past that what I wanted before was to see the healers have gradual levels of difficulty similar to the difficulty levels of the tanks: White Mage being similar to Paladin. Scholar being similar to Dark Knight. Sage being similar to Gunbreaker. And Astrologian being sort of tangential to Warrior with a more buff-focused rotation. I strongly doubt there's anyone who would describe Paladin as having a "stratospheric" skill ceiling.

Look, you don't have to like my stance. And like I said, I really can't be bothered to keep caring about the other healers when you're here to fight that every step of the way. But at least treat my perspective for what it is, and not an embellished exaggeration to make it seem far more extreme that it actually ever was. Sure my Sage is extreme, but that's because I want it to be on Gunbreaker's level, and that is extreme from the position the healers are currently in. But "Stratospheric" is an uncharitable exaggeration of my take as well as the takes of many others: The common suggestion in this space is for every healer to offer some amount of skill ceiling with that ceiling ranging from modest to ambitious across the 4 healers. You want one healer to have no or nearly no skill ceiling and are not content with anything higher. That's fine. That's your perspective. Own it. But don't treat my past arguments or anyone else's as "stratospheric" when that simply isn't true. I don't think I've ever seen, for example, a White Mage concept shared on the forums that was even as complex as Dancer's, and I don't think there's a soul alive that has so much as glanced at FFXIV that would describe Dancer's ceiling as "Stratospheric," or if they do they're referring to your proc luck.

[Zeastria]

People get mad at you for it because they don't like your version of it.

Specifically this:



No, its not an improvement. An improvement would be:

Make it so all healers have different healing styles and dps styles, giving each healer an identity and level of play for people to choose from for all avenues of play.

Current healers give NOTHING for veteran healers. And I've already told you it isn't fair to tell other people to go play another class because YOU think that retaining the current set up is the only way to get what YOU want despite the fact we've argued plenty of times that a simple healer can exist with more dps options. And so long as the latter can exist, you have no platform to stand on.

I've pushed for more diversed healers. What I haven't done, is limit their kit and limit which class can get improvements.

What good will diversity do among the jobs - when you can't use 90% of your toolkit anyway???
- The damage output is ***** low and 80% of all dmg is avoidable!
You will all still be pressing the same buttons 90% of the time..be it 1 or 4 dps buttons.

[Renathras]

That is a lie.

No, it's not.

At what point am I asking for the Healer role to turn into a DPS? That's YOUR biased view point.

So is your view, and I quote, of me asking for "is limit their kit and limit which class can get improvements".

I'm asking for something to do that isn't a boring Glare/Malefic/Dosis/Broil spam

And I'm asking for that, too, just not on ALL healers.
...and I play only healers for MSQ. I have no issues.

Then give an alternative that works for SOLO and group play so that I have something to do when I have nothing to heal.

1) You have something to do, you just don't enjoy it, but I do.
2) I even already propose this, just not for all 4 Healer Jobs.

Your 4 healer model doesn't do that.

Yes, it outright does.

And you've yet to give a satisfactory answer.

Yes, I outright have.

Mine is certainly a better improvement than yours.

No, it's not. It's basically the same thing, just with your bias applied instead of mine.

Your "improvement" is objectively bad because healers currently are objectively bad.

Subjectively. The word you're looking for is subjectively. Healers are not objectively bad, they are subjectively bad, and my improvement is not objectively bad, it's subjectively, to you, bad because it doesn't give you everything you want.

They are quite literally not designed for the current state of combat design and need to change. All of them.

1) They're actually very well designed for the current state of combat, which is actually part of the problem.
2) Encounter design is the far bigger issue here.
3) My suggestion even addresses this (especially when you get more into the weeds of specific changes I think should happen).

Except all of those while having a low skill ceiling job also has more than 2 dps buttons

BECAUSE THEY ARE DPS JOBS (in the case of SMN, DNC, and RPR) and in the case of WAR, they have a comparable amount of dps buttons when you consider their combos aren't choices or interesting. WAR's overall rotation is mostly similar to WHM's given that constraint, in fact, as I've shown before:

Heavy Swing-Maim-Storm's Path: Glare
-Storm's Eye: Dia
Overpower/Mithril Tempest: Holy
Upheval/Orogeny: Assize
Inner Release: Presence of Mind
Infuriate: Thin Air (or Swiftcast)
Fell Cleave: Solace/Rapture
Primal Rend: Misery

The only one of those that's at all a "stretch" is Fell cleave vs Solace/Rapture, but WHM is a healer while WAR is not (WAR doesn't have any tanking GCDs), and the only thing missing there is WHM doesn't have a three charge oGCD to burn where WAR has Onslaught, and WHM doesn't have a ranged instant that generates healing like WAR has Tomahawk as an instant ranged GCD attack that generates threat. Overall, that's pretty comparable considering WAR has overall less buttons than WHM does, despite splitting "Assize" into two parts (Onslaught and Orogeny share a CD) and that WAR has a 1-2- single target and a 1-2 AOE

Healers' difficulty overall is comparable to SMN or WAR. That's not a problem for ONE healer Job. It's a problem for ALL of them.

Having a SECOND "second easiest" Healer Job being like DNC or RPR is fine - offhand, I'd say SGE though SCH could fit the bill - but that's the SECOND least complex/most straightforward, not the first. The first should be comparable to WAR or SMN.

Further last I checked you had this to say

Yup. Yet another compromise I've made over time.

What's your point?

And no, that's not hyperbole. Guys, stop it with the "gotcha" attempts. You're really bad at it.

I don't like DPS rotations. If I did, I would play a DPS Job. Notwithstanding that, sometimes I need to for the sake of the party or situation, and I go for WAR or PLD or SMN levels of complexity. Which is fine because I tunnel and completely ignore party health values (unless on SMN out of the corner of my eye I see both healers dead or someone says something in /party about it, at which point I swap to Raisemage mode). Healers, I don't have that luxury. That's where the extra mental energy is made up.

If all healers were given SMN levels of rotation IN ADDITION TO HEALING REQUIREMENTS, I'd just play SMN instead. Why would I play a "healer" role with more complex rotations than actual DPS Jobs? That's stupid, especially since SMN offers raise and some healing capability.

Also thanks for putting words in my mouth again.

I'm a bit confused.

Where did I say YOU said this?

YOU were telling ME why YOU think other people disagree with me.

_I_ was telling YOU why _I_ think those other people disagree with me.

...where did I mention why you disagree with me or what you said? I said "they", not "you".

How do you get "you" from "they"? o.O

You don't want genuine discussion I swear.

I swear, you don't want genuine discussion.

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You will all still be pressing the same buttons 90% of the time..be it 1 or 4 dps buttons.

Exactly.

More DPS buttons without a encounter design rework keeps the same problem it just masks it and makes the role intolerable for people that actually want to be healers.

The solution is to change encounter design.

Once that's done, half the problem will already be fixed, and then it's just a matter of turning SCH back into a support DPS/Healer hybrid again.

[Renathras]

You're exaggerating all the points I've ever made.

Where did I say "Ty says"?

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Also, aside: Why would you make AST - currently the most complex healer - similar to WAR? You'd have to vastly simplify its kit to achieve that. That makes no sense. You'd have to completely gut AST's kit, remove around 1/4th of it just to get it to a comparable amount of buttons to WAR before anything, then you'd have to kill the APM (WAR has among the lowest APMs in the game vs AST having one of the highest, and probably the highest if you counted target swaps as an action), and then you'd have to remove all of the delayed effect and ability modifier stuff, so no more Earthly Star, Macrocosmos, Neutral Stance, Horosope, etc.

WHM being like WAR, SCH like PLD, AST like DRK (they have similar APMs in their bursts), and SGE like GNB would be the most logical pairings, would they not?

And WHM already is roughly comparable to WAR. If it had a 1-2-3 combo, it'd be effectively identical.

I get the thought of WHM and PLD being holy magic users, but that's really not a thing in FFXIV and the two are unrelated (WHM from the 5th era Amdapori mages and PLDs from the 6th Ul'Dah royal guardsmen) anyway. There's not really any lore connection, or at least none that have been addressed. And that doesn't work when we consider any of the others anyway other than SGE and GNB both use "not-guns but really guns" weapons. SCH and DRK don't really have any lore connection (SCH's is closer to WAR through the MRD Royal Marines of Nym), nor would AST and WAR.

Like...this is aside from me disagreeing with you in general. I'd say the comparisons should be something like:

WHM - WAR - SMN
SCH - PLD - RDM/DNC/RPR (a slight step up, but more on the utility side of things than anything)
AST - DRK - NIN(?)/MCH(?) (indeed, the four already have a similar playstyle of high APM burst with relatively uneventful "maintenance" downtime)
SGE - GNB - DRG, maybe? Not sure on the DPS side of that.

And by this measure, WHM is effectively at this level already, give or take. Trading Glare for a 1-2-3 combo basically sets that even, if even that.

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As for the "stratospheric" - when I've proposed increasing skill ceiling but not by a lot, it is shot down as insufficient. So clearly it's not just a little nudge that people are asking for, it is something significantly higher (skill ceiling), not a variable "one being just a smidge higher all the way up to one being far higher". Though I will note, for the record, that some of your proposals have met that better than others, but with the lowest end one still higher. I think the closest we ever came was my SCH change suggestion/proposal, maybe?

You want one healer to have no or nearly no skill ceiling and are not content with anything higher.

No, I don't.

You can't accuse me of hyperbole and misrepresenting you then turning around and engaging in hyperbole and misrepresenting me.

And as I pointed out: "height" of skill ceiling isn't really an objective measurement. Even "on a scale from 1-10" is subjective. You'd probably put current WHM as a 2 or maybe 3 while I'd put it as a 5-6.

If you like, I can think of other words for "high", but I wasn't talking about you specifically.

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The real reason people disagree with my position is they want all the healer Jobs to suit them so they can have a buffet of choices and they don't care about who is now starving and has none or only the scraps they leave behind. I'm not sure a better way to put it than that. Some people believe this is a game design argument, but it still comes down to the same thing of they want all the options for themselves and none of anyone who doesn't like what they do.

I was trying to say it...nicer...than that, though.

If it wasn't that, then there'd be no issue with leaving some at a lower DPS level or without more DPS actions.

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Anyway, this is all a stupid tangent ASkellington got us on which now has people insulting and attacking each other - great job there, ASkellignton - so it's whatever.

...though I am GENUINELY curious how you think you could get AST to WAR level of complexity and why WHM must be paired with PLD instead of WAR...

[Shurrikhan]

Where did I say "Ty says"?

Repeatedly using "you" after quoting someone tends to refer to that person quoted, unless the responder has made very clear that by "you" they do not mean the person to whom they are responding, which hasn't exactly been the case above.

:: For the sake of clarity of a sort necessary only when one (you, Renathras, in this case) is purposely seeding and then evading reasonable communicative expectations, I am responding to you, Renathras, in this post introduced by quoting you, Renathras.